In the case of an automatic processor like a printer processor used to develop photo prints, a photosensitive material such as photographic printing paper is cut by a cutter according to a size of photo prints into a cut-sheet photosensitive material, on which photo printing is done. After the printing process, the photosensitive material is distributed into single line or plural lines at a distribution section and then conveyed to a developing section. Generally, the developing section develops the photosensitive material by conveying it to processing tanks by conveyer rollers and by letting it pass through respective processing liquids one after another.
The developed photosensitive material is wet with moisture from the tanks. For this reason, the developed photosensitive material is removed water at a squeezing section and then is conveyed to a dry section where it is dried. The dry section includes a conveyer rack that conveys the photosensitive material, a fan and a heater. The fan blows air heated by the heater to dry the photosensitive material. Since how the dry section dries the photosensitive material affects the quality of it very much, various kinds of devices that firmly dry a wet photosensitive material after being developed have been invented.
For example, a drying device disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No.-H05-249646 has a number of cylinders along a transport direction of a photosensitive material, aligning a longitudinal direction of the cylinders with a direction perpendicular to the transport direction. Each of these cylinders has a slit in its longitudinal direction on a facing side to the photosensitive material, from which dry air is blown to the photosensitive material. Moreover, the cylinder narrows the width according as it is away from a dry air inlet, changing cross-section area of its aperture, to allow dry air to blow from across the slit in almost uniform air volume. A plural number of such cylinders are provided on both sides of a path of the photosensitive material, so that dry air comes from both sides of the photosensitive material as it is conveyed along the path. The photosensitive material is conveyed by a lot of nipping rollers installed on the path. This system, however, needs plural cylinders and a lot of nipping rollers, which increases the number of components and production cost.
Another drying device known from Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2003-287865 has a fan duct along a path of a photosensitive material. A guide component (a dry air blowing component) is installed on a facing side of the fan duct to the material path. The guide component has dry air outlets at specified intervals. Dry air sent from a dry air inlet into the fan duct blows from the dry air outlets to the photosensitive material. The photosensitive material blown dry air from the dry air outlets is conveyed being pressed on an endless belt made from a mesh.
The drying device used in the latter prior art needs less number of components and is simpler in structure than one used in the former prior art. In the drying device used in the latter prior art, however, the volume of dry air blown from dry air outlets to the photosensitive material is so uneven that it sometimes caused irregular dry condition in the material or jerky transport of the material because curled edges were caught in the outlets.